Trusting Your Leader for the Right Things

Let me begin by begging you not to ask my wife if she trusts me. The reason being that the list of things with which she would trust me is much shorter than the list of tasks she would not delegate to me. For example she does not trust me to dress myself using clothes with acceptable colour combinations nor does she trust me to do anything in the kitchen except dry the dishes and empty the dishwasher. Anything more complicated than changing a light bulb will have her calling a handyman or handywoman.

But after forty years of marriage, she is at least able to articulate those areas in which she has trust and those areas in which trust would be sorely misplaced.

Boards and leaders often don’t get that far. While one board can treat its leader like knight in shining armour who can do anything, another board begins with the assumption that it must check everything short of whether the teeth of its leader have been brushed.

Trust is a word that one does not want to throw around without context or specificity.

A board must start with two opposing assumptions. The first is that the leader will not instinctively know what the board does not want. This limitation is combined with the leader’s humanity which at times will be characterized by flaws, shortcomings and a less than perfect memory.  The second assumption is that the leader is endowed with a level of competence that does not require the condescending input of the board. (If a board has concerns about the competence of its leader, that is arguably a greater commentary on the incompetence of the board to do its job in hiring a competent leader).

When a board delegates unqualified responsibilities to a leader, that is more a reflection of the board’s mistrust in itself than its categorical trust in its leader. It believes that it has nothing to offer in terms of the overall direction of the organization. This is not only untrue; it is an abdication of the inherent responsibility a board has to govern on behalf of its legal and moral owners.

On the other hand what about the board which feels the need to respond or weigh in on every decision a leader makes? This is often seen as a board’s fiduciary responsibility or its provision of sober second thought. (Does this imply that the first thought was germinated in the soil of non-sobriety?) But I digress. The reality is the board has failed to articulate (a) what ultimately needs to happen as a result of the organization’s existence and (b) what it has set as unacceptable actions or inactions in achieving the heretofore unarticulated results. This two-fold failure on the part of the board to do what is arguably its only reason for existing, leads to aimless wandering through the backwater of irrelevant minutia which invariably leads to it becoming entangled with the barnacles of extraneous detail.

Once the board has the destination in view and identified the reefs that need to be avoided, it can turn over the sailing of its ship to the captain it has hired.

What if the Board Doesn't Like the Leader's Interpretation?

If you have followed me at all you will know of my obsession with asking the right questions. The above is not the right question, but let me answer it anyway.

If the Board doesn’t like the Leader’s interpretation of a policy, that’s almost always the Board’s problem.

Let’s re-establish some assumptions about Policy Governance^®.

This model assumes a basic implied trust in the Leader. Policy Governance does not cover for a Leader who is fundamentally incompetent; although the model will expose such incompetence. Having a basic trust in the Leader, the Board develops explicate limitations and monitors compliance to those limitations. 

When a Compliance Report is submitted, the Board must accept the Leader’s interpretation of the Leader Limitation Policies provided it is reasonable. In Policy Governance, interpretation does not mean providing synonyms for words used in the policy, but rather a metric. The Board may use words such as “current” or “adequate”. The Leader may interpret “current” as within a certain number of days or “adequate” as a dollar amount, depending on the policy.  The only reason a Board will not accept an interpretation is if it is not reasonable. A reasonable interpretation is one which the Board agrees would be likely considered reasonable by a prudent and contextualized person in a similar situation.

If the Board finds that the Leader’s interpretation is reasonable, but one with which the Board is not comfortable, it needs to amend the policy.  The failure of the Leader to interpret the wishes of the Board is almost always a failure on the part of the Board to carefully word its policy. Once it has clarified the policy, the Leader will interpret the revised policy.

Leader Limitation Policies must not be written as breadcrumbs which are dropped along the governance path, with the hope that the crumbs will lead to the board’s desired expectation. It must not say, “This is what we really want; let’s see how close the Leader gets to that”. Policies need to be written with extreme care.

Keep in mind that the more detail in a limitation, the more interpretation and the more data are required from the Leader, and more monitoring of compliance is required by the Board.

So what is the right question?

“Are we comfortable with any reasonable interpretation the Leader may apply to this policy, putting away any personal biases or preferences individual Directors may have?”  

The Importance of Asking the Right Questions

Recently I looked into having my website freshened up. Among the replies from prospective designers which I received, two were very insightful. The first designer responded by email stating in one line what they would do, with a ball park price which seemed reasonable. The second designer asked if we could meet so he could have clarity what I was looking for. During the meeting he posed questions of which I had not thought and recommendations that I had not considered. The first designer was clear about what they would do; in the second case, the designer provided clarity for both me and him.

When all you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail. That is not only true for would-be carpenters and web site designers; it is also true for consultants. A consultant must be careful that the solution is driven less by the answer the consultant provides and more by the questions the client is asking.

Our board is dysfunctional. What can you do for us?

Our executive director runs the board meetings. How can we change that?

 We don’t feel effective as a board. How can you help us and what would you charge?

As a consultant (who likes to appear competent), I initially feel the pressure to provide a definitive answer and now. However I need to keep coming back to one of my basic assumptions about consulting…and about life. Finding the right answer starts with asking the right question. As such one of the roles of a good consultant is to help the client identify the correct question.

What does dysfunctional look like in the context of your board; how does it evidence itself?

How did the executive director, who is ostensibly the employee of the board, become the boss? And What is the culture that has caused that to be acceptable?

If I gave you a price for consulting, how would you determine if that was a reasonable fee?

These probing questions challenge the client to think through their response, to which their answers provide more clarity for the consultant to ask yet more clarifying questions. This forces the consultant to listen carefully and thus assist the client to more clearly identify the issues.

Just a reminder to myself that I must avoid the temptation to come up with the right answer before I have understood the right question.